Got suited up and out to the Forester. Had looked up and seen that there is a bike & running path along the Colorado River w/in 1/2 mile of hotel. Ended up at Gateway Park and did one mile total out and back towards the main road through town.
Caught the train passing over the bridge. Didn't notice the lettering on the bridge until I was watching bridge. I imagine it is lighted at night and looks pretty good.
Decided to seek out Starbucks for coffee and bkfst and ended up at one inside a Target a few miles away, and did some provisions shopping before heading back to the hotel. Noted low tire pressure light on again w/ the Forester -- stopped at a gas station and aired all the tires up to 32 psi. Very glad I did given impromptu adventurousness to take place later in the day :)
Got back to hotel and showered up and got myself packed up and out of the hotel about 10:30am. It was a 2.5 hour drive pretty much due east for half of it then due south for other half. The first part of it on the 8 was broad divided 4 lane highway through the desert. Within 20 minutes or so outside of Yuma it flattened out into desert expanse punctuated with cactus and brush. Then switching to the 85 south and Gila Bend and heading down to Ajo for the last hour got me on a two-lane highway with few other cars.
I arrived in Ajo shortly after 1pm. Check-in at the inn I am staying at wasnt until 3, so I surveyed the downtown area by car, then went up to the mine lookout I had read about.
Ajo is a small town -- 3300 people. The special significance for me is that my grandmother lived here for her high school years. She never said much about the town but realizing I could plan my trip in a way that brought me through here made me want to check it out.
The lookout was quite a sight. I had never seen a copper mine before.
It was in operation until 1984. Apparently conflicting stories on why it stopped -- docent at historical society said it was due to cost of copper dropping such that it wasn't cost effective to produce. Reading material has said feud between the families caused them to stop operations. At any rate after mine closed down population of town took huge drop.
The Ajo Historical Museum was up a dirt gravel road -- very glad I am in a SUV and have 4WD.
The most notable items to me were in the historical society room, which had yearbooks from the high school, catalogs of obituaries, old phone books, etc. There were "live" clippings just sitting out on the main desk in different stacks to be categorized and added to albums! As I was looking through some of the yearbooks I accidentally knocked a few onto the floor even. Felt like I was meddling with history.
Came across some interesting finds, including the yearbook where my great uncle (grandmother's younger brother) was a senior in high school. I never met him in person, but as a kid we used to write letters to each other and he would send me money for Xmas and my bday.
Got a few postcards from the museum, left a donation, and grabbed a single page flyer instructing how to do a 10 mile scenic loop around the mine. With the time being just around 2:45pm figured I had a bit more time to kill and check it out.
Ended up going about 1/3rd of the way overall -- I didnt use my odometer from the starting point like it said and I wasn't sure I was going to catch each of the unmarked turns that were required back on the gravel roads. Fun though to be 4 wheeling out in the desert, behind the copper mine a bit.
Turned around at the point where there were abandonded buildings on a corner whereafter I was to "keep on the main road."
Got back into town the few miles or so and got to my accomodations, which is an inn comprised of former elementary school classrooms. Impressed with the grounds and, even though I was critical for the pictures online, the IKEA-furnished rooms are pretty great. Perfect timing for my arrival too -- weather decided to fully change into downpouring rain and thunderstorms for the next hour or so. Ended up being nice down time to get situated and get further working on getting this blog going.
From checkin I knew that my two dinner options would be either a local grill/burger place or a Pizza Hut -- both of which closed at 8pm. I had two leftover chili dogs from Wienerschnitzel from the night before, so took them over to the main lounge room to warm those bad boys up as a mid afternoon snack. They hit the spot.
Headed out around 6 to drive over to Agave Grill. It was a packed venue, albeit with maybe 25 ppl total. No tables available but I got a seat at their small bar area. Had a Negra Modelo and bacon cheeseburger w/ fries. Definitely hit the spot too.
Back then to the inn for the night, but I drove around the town square/plaza just to further take everything in after dark and with holiday decorations. Turned out I was able to get some wild javelinas on video. Need to look them up but pretty sure they are just wild pigs.
Back to the inn for the night and some blogging here, along with prepping for very early (7:30am, sunrise) departure for El Paso, TX (6.5 hours away).
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